This invention relates generally to the fields of chemical extraction, fertilizers and nutritional supplements and more specifically to a METHOD OF PRODUCING USEFUL PRODUCTS FROM SEAWATER AND SIMILAR MICROFLORA CONTAINING BRINES.
For thousands of years mankind has utilized the minerals and vegetable products of the oceans for both food and fertilizer.
Even to this day sea salt is prized for its trace mineral content and kelp products are used as both food and fertilizer in many parts of the world.
The present invention bonds both dissolved carbon-based organic chemicals and suspended carbon-based organic particles to hydroxide precipitates of marine minerals.
They are bonded ionically, mechanically, electrostatically or otherwise.
For the bulk of dissolved organic carbon in the ocean, chemical structure and basic biochemical parameters are largely unknown.
Fulvic acid which is ubiquitous at low concentrations in all parts of the ocean consists of many thousands of different organic substances of both marine derived and terragenous origin.
Not only are the compositions of these substances largely unknown, so are their physical properties.
It is known that some of these substances, especially exopolysaccharides, are capable of spontaneous polymerization with the production of jelly-like layers covering several square miles.
Dimethylsulfoniopropionate, a substance produced by phytoplankton for osmotic control, is generated in such quantities that some of its decomposition products are considered to have a major effect on planetary weather. It is known to have a kosmotropic effect on water molecules.
Other of the dissolved organic substances organize water molecules into liquid and solid phase clathrates and quasiclathrates.
A new class of highly abundant, nonliving organic marine particles has recently been recognized.
These colloidal particles consist primarily of exopolymers released as exudates by phytoplankton and bacteria. These exopolymer particles have been found to be present in seawater ranging up to 5,000 particles per ml and varying in size from 3 to 100 nanometers.
They are characterized as containing large amounts of water which has been organized by the organic matter. It is postulated that this ability of dissolved and particulate organic matter in the oceans to organize and add structure to water molecules is, at least in part, responsible for the observable and measurable biological effects of the present invention on plant, animal and human life.
In the past, minerals have been extracted from seawater for fertilizer and nutritional supplementation or the organic content has been extracted separately for the same purpose.
To the best of the inventors knowledge, no one has previously, intentionally extracted the two together for the synergistic effect which they have in combination when used as a slurry.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,374,081 is a method of separating minerals from seawater which are suitable for use as fertilizers and animal feeds. It employs added proteinaceous materials to precipitate minerals as chelated complexes. The teaching of this patent is to add organic materials to a brine with the goal of forming a precipitate of metal proteinates.
The methods employed and precipitates obtained are of very different nature than those of the present invention.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,606,839 employs methods similar to the current invention for the purpose of producing a pure sodium chloride product.
The patent shows no awareness of the valuable nature of the byproduct for the applications claimed by the present invention.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,071,457 describes a method of evaporating seawater to dryness for application of the resultant solids as fertilizer.
This product very successfully increased crop yields but required application rates of 550 to 2,200 pounds of sea solids per acre.
The first paragraph of this patent states that it relates only to the inorganic salts contained in seawater.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,404,550 uses methods similar to the current invention but uses them for the purpose of extraction and purification of mineral salts from the waters of the Great Salt Lake.
One of its aims is the separation and exclusion of organic content from the final product. Testing of the present invention has demonstrated that purified minerals extracted from brines do not have the desired effects.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,934,419 uses methods similar to the current invention but differs in two very important respects. No mention is made of organic content and the mineral precipitates are dried. Testing of the current invention has shown that if the precipitates are dried they can no longer significantly stimulate plant growth.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,634,533 uses methods similar to the current invention to recover useful products such as fertilizer, animal feed supplements and mineral salts from brines. It differs in two important respects. It makes no mention of the organic chemical constituents of the brine.
It requires the addition of a phosphorous source in order to have the claimed benefit as a fertilizer.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,015,971 has the object of producing fertilizers from seawater containing “microelements and active organic substances”.
This is accomplished by adding bivalent iron ions to the seawater so that the organic substances are co-precipitated with the iron hydroxides. It does not utilize the contained magnesium and calcium brine constituents as does the present invention. The patent claims 5% to 10% increased crop yields with application rates of 0.5 to 3 kg of dried solids per hectare.On this basis it is both less effective and less economical than the present invention.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,074,901 is a method for producing a liquor from seawater by achieving a 90% reduction of the original volume through evaporation.
Although the patent states that this Liquor, when diluted, will function as a fertilizer, its nature is very different from the liquor produced by the current invention.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,147,229 describes a method of producing magnesium fulvate from humus material. It involves digesting the humus in a solution of sodium hydroxide, then acidifying to precipitate humates followed by the addition of magnesium hydroxide to the supernatent in order to precipitate magnesium fulvate.
The current invention extracts magnesium fulvate from seawater in a single step by the addition of sodium hydroxide, which precipitates the contained magnesium as hydroxide that in turn precipitates the contained fulvates as magnesium fulvate.
These prior usages have not recognized the benefits, economies and synergies that can be achieved by using the magnesium and/or calcium constituents of the sea water and similar brines to co-precipitate and recover in usable form, the organic chemical and particulate organic content of said brines. Furthermore, they did not recognize that the resultant precipitates are most bioactive in slurry form. That they did not do so indicates that such usage is unobvious.